Art Brewer, while renowned as the heavyweight champion of surf photography, also enjoys an extensive career outside the genre. While waves and surfers are his obvious métier, his talent runs, quite literally, much deeper. Be it scuba-documenting the skeletal remains of ditched Japanese Zeroes in Palau for Islands magazine, ramrod ding creative identity packages for Casio, or luring high-speed PWC towards his lens (and face) for a SeaDoo shoot, Art gets the job done with vision, élan, and brutal efficiency..

Over his 35-year career, Art has seen his work—much of it hand decorated and enhanced—celebrated in gallery showings and mainstream publications as diverse as Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Esquire and Playboy. Somehow Art manages to inject an overriding sense of poignancy and smartass fun into his portraits, bringing the beach esprit to the most desperately landlocked denizens.

A child of the ’50s, Brewer grew up in the coastal art enclave of Laguna Beach, California, the heartbeat of West Coast plein air impressionism. An early immersion in the wealth of outdoor images surrounding him helped Brewer bring a fine-arts consciousness to the then-budding art of surf photography.

Brewer began his career as a freelance photographer for Surfer Magazine in the late ’60s and subsequently served as staff photographer, darkroom specialist and photo editor until the late ’80s. Brewer has circled the globe innumerable times chasing the world's best waves and the surfers who covet them. Brewer is distinguished among his peers for his collection of surfer portraits; over three decades acting as court painter for the royalty and comrades of the global wave riding culture.

If a project swims, sinks, floats, or fogs a mirror, Art Brewer can capture it.

Recent awards include a Silver CINDY, and a Silver Apple at the National Educational Film Festival.

Art Brewer is pleased to announce the publication of Masters of Surf Photography: Art Brewer, an oversized, full-color, hardbound monograph from The Surfer’s Journal.